Migrating Data Platform, data warehouse or data lake?
When deciding to move your data to the cloud, many people focus on costs, expected gains, easier maintenance, or simplified development. Sometimes, lower costs or easier maintenance drive the decision. However, it’s crucial to also consider the potential cost of exiting the cloud. What happens if, at some point, you decide you no longer want to be on a particular cloud platform? This could happen due to rising costs, new technology options, or even legal or political reasons.
Did you know that the exit-cost of your data platform from a Cloud might be a more expensive project than an original migration to the Cloud?
If you plan to migrate your data platform to the cloud, thinking about future migration costs now is a sign of responsible migration. Understand what will be the cost in terms of dollars, time, and effort if at some point you decide to exit that specific cloud vendor. This means recognizing that exit costs aren’t always obvious and that you’ll need to consider the various aspects of vendor lock-in.
What exactly are the risks associated with vendor lock-in:
- Long term costs rise. If you don’t have an easy to move alternative you are at risk of becoming a hostage.
- Lack of flexibility – even if your solution is great now you always risk that it will not be developed in the future.
- High transfer fees. Most clouds are charging you if you transfer data from it (egress fee). That needs to be calculated when planning a migration from a specific cloud vendor.
- Contractual agreements – Vendor lock-in is not only about proprietary technology or data formats. What’s in the contract might be another trap which might become painful in the future.
- Lost optimization opportunities – there is no such thing as free lunch. Cloud solutions usually are easier to start with but your engineers might lose ability to do low level tuning if you even need that.
When planning your cloud migration, don’t overlook the long-term exit costs – ask your provider about compatibility of specific technology with other tools in the market.
What can you do to mitigate the risk:
- Evaluate the technology and alternatives – consider if there are open-source alternatives to your chosen data warehousing solution or if it’s compatible with other vendors
- If you decide on proprietary technology make sure the cost of in and expected exit cost is justified by what you gain (usually easier, faster development)
- Consider hybrid cloud. It’s more expensive but gives you more flexibility in the long run.
- Consider favouring well-known standards and open source technologies and data formats. A good example is Kubernetes – it’s a technology which you can have on your own servers as well as with any major cloud providers.
Considering moving to the cloud providers, ping me on Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcin-szymaniuk/) for specific calculations.
Summary
The data space is moving fast.
Always ask yourself what is the risk that within 5 years you have to migrate again.
Always ask yourself what will happen if you can’t use the selected data platform anymore. How long notice would you need to migrate to another solution?
